Eric Buenger ’12

Major / Program:

Actuarial Science

You won’t find his name in any record books or box scores, but Eric Buenger registered an assist for the 2010 Butler men’s basketball team.

It was on the plane home after the win over Kansas State in the Elite Eight. Buenger, who played baritone in the Basketball Band, was sitting across the aisle from Coach Brad Stevens. Stevens asked his wife if she had any sour cream and onion potato chips. She didn’t. But Buenger did. He gave his chips to Stevens, which prompted the coach to say, “You’re the man!”

“‘You’re the man,’” Buenger said, still reveling in the memory. “Brad Stevens just called me the man—after all that just happened on the court. But no, I’m the man.”

That’s just one of many happy Butler memories for Buenger, who chose Butler because it offered the major he wanted—Actuarial Science—taught in small classes. He said he made up his mind after coming to campus to interview for a departmental scholarship. Afterward, he received a handwritten card from the people he interviewed with saying how excited they were to potentially have him as a student.

“With that level of connection I felt in the interview and then that follow-up afterward, I thought: ‘These are going to be people who care about me and my progression and my career.’ That’s really what drew me in. And then the faculty was great once I got there.”

During Buenger’s time at Butler, he worked as a Resident Assistant in Ross Hall for three years, which helped him develop interpersonal and conflict resolution skills as well as the ability to communicate in front of a large audience. “All of those things definitely helped me moving forward in my professional life.” He also played in the Marching Band, was a member of the national honorary band fraternity Kappa Kappa Psi, interned with Prudential on the East Coast, and met his future wife, Lauren, a Pharmacy major.

After graduation, Buenger worked for Torchmark Corp. in Texas before moving back to Indiana to work for Anthem. He said Butler prepared him well for his career. While in school, he even passed his first two actuarial exams (out of upwards of a dozen milestones he'll have to pass).

“That,” he said, “really helped me with my job search. They saw that I had two of these exams down, and that was definitely a good starting spot.”